martes, 18 de noviembre de 2008

Four proposed hydroelectric dam projects threaten free-flowing Panamanian rivers, rare tropical species, indigenous cultures and a biologically diverse World Heritage site in the remote rainforest of western Panama. Promoted by the Panamanian government, the Colombian-owned Hidroecologica del Teribe (HET), and the U.S.-based AES Corporation, the dam projects would forever alter the pristine rivers of the Changuinola/Teribe watershed.

HET would operate a dam on the Bonyic River, within indigenous Naso territory. The remaining three dams would be constructed and operated by AES Corporation, which has recently faced lawsuits in the Dominican Republic for the alleged dumping of rock-ash. AES also had to pull out of the controversial Bujagali dam project in Uganda for issues similar to those in Panama. And more than 5,000 people protested a proposed electric plant in El Salvador this summer. In Panama, construction of the lowest Changuinola dam alone would biologically deplete more than 500 miles of streams. These four dams and their roads, bridges, and power lines would devastate unique native fish, damage the ecosystem, and open the remote jungle to development.

La Amistad Reserve contains Central America's largest intact tropical rainforest, is a United Nations designated World Heritage site, and harbors incredible biodiversity including more than 40 species of fish. Most of the fish in the watershed depend on access to the ocean to complete their life cycles, but the dams would hinder migration, possibly leading to the disappearance of up to 11 aquatic species. The dams would also flood indigenous Naso and Ngobe territories, displacing several thousand people.

Please join the growing international movement to protect this ecological jewel and voice your opposition to the proposed Hydroelectric Projects.

In-Depth Information:Massive hydropower development is currently proposed for much of Mesoamerica that will industrialize the region in the name of free trade. More than 380 dams are currently proposed for the area, potentially affecting entire ecosystems and the biological diversity of Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama and Colombia. Currently, the most critical dam threats are the proposed hydropower projects near the border of Panama and Costa Rica within the Changuinola/Teribe watershed, on the Rio Changuinola and its major tributary, the Rio Teribe, which flow out of the La Amistad International Peace Park and Biosphere Reserve (a UNESCO World Heritage site), through the protected Palo Seco Forest Reserve and the territories of the Naso and Ngobe indigenous peoples, and into the Caribbean Sea through the Changuinola estuary, the center of the 40,000-acre San San/Pondsak wetlands (a Ramsar site).

La Amistad Reserve contains Central America's largest remaining intact tropical rainforest. Its vastness and greatly varied habitat shelter an impressive number of creatures, including nearly four percent of all terrestrial species varieties on Earth. La Amistad is one of the most biologically diverse areas on the planet, home to more than 40 species of fish, 250 species of reptiles and amphibians, 215 species of mammals and 600 species of birds, including the resplendent quetzal, three-wattled bellbird, bare-necked umbrella bird, harpy eagle, crested eagle, solitary eagle, orange-breasted falcon and 59 endemic bird species. This World Heritage site is one of the last refuges in western Panama for major species of felines such as the puma, ocelot, jaguarundi, tiger-cat and jaguar, as well as increasingly rare species such as tapirs. More than 180 endemic plant species and six endemic amphibians have been recorded at La Amistad.

Because Panama is a narrow isthmus, the Teribe and Changuinola Rivers are relatively short and intimately connected with the sea. Many of the fish and other aquatic creatures in these streams are diadromous, meaning they need access to saltwater at some stage in order to complete their life cycle. Some migrate downstream to the estuary to spawn, and their young must then make their way back upstream; others travel far upstream to reproduce and rely on currents to carry their eggs or larvae back to the sea. The dams would impede the life cycles and reproduction of the majority of fish and freshwater shrimp species in these rivers, eliminating much of the aquatic production, thus threatening fish species even below the dams. A potential consequence of the Changuinola projects and other hydropower projects proposed for Central America is the virtual disappearance of characteristic Mesoamerican river fauna, as has already occurred due to dam construction in the West Indies in places like Puerto Rico.

The Panamanian dam projects are being developed by the Colombian utility Empresas Publicas de Medellin (EPM); the Panamanian generator Hidroecologica del Teribe (HET); and the U.S.-based AES Corporation, a self-described "Global Power Company." Collaborators on the AES dams include Vattenfall AB of Sweden, E. Pihl & S?n A.S of Denmark, MT H?jgaard a/s of Denmark, and Alstom of Brazil. The Colombian corporation was seeking funding for the Bonyic project from the Inter-American Development Bank, but the project is so controversial that in 2005 the bank suspended consideration of loans for the project. As of September 2007, AES Corporation is securing funding and partners and has begun preliminary works on the remaining three dams, which would be located on the Changuinola River.

The Panama National Environmental Authority (ANAM) has approved flawed Environmental Impact Assessments that do not consider the impacts to the World Heritage site. It also granted a concession of 6,000 hectares to AES Corporation within the Palo Seco Forest Reserve, upon which to begin construction of the three Changuinola dams. These dams will cause massive damage to the biodiversity of the ecosystem and flood indigenous villages, effectively displacing thousands of people. Despite strong local opposition to any relocation, the company and government have developed plans to relocate several thousand Ngobe people living near the AES dam sites. These plans fail to comport with indigenous decision-making norms.

Please join the efforts of the Naso and Ngobe indigenous peoples, Panamanian organizations and a growing international movement to protect these important Central American rivers. Voice your opposition to the Bonyic Project to Hidroecologica del Teribe, S.A., and to the Changuinola Projects to AES Corporation and its collaborators. Please call Paul Hanrahan, President of AES, at (703) 522-1315, and let him know it is not acceptable for a U.S. company to fund the destruction of Panama's free-flowing rivers.

Model Letter:

Subject: Cancel Changuinola/Teribe Hydroelectric Projects

Dear Sir/Madam:

Please do not further fund or participate in the hydroelectric projects along the Changuinola and Bonyic Rivers in Bocas del Toro Province, Panama. These projects would have devastating consequences for the ecology of the free-flowing Changuinola and Bonyic Rivers and their tributaries and unacceptable impacts on the wildlife of adjacent La Amistad International Park, an internationally designated World Heritage site and part of the La Amistad Biosphere Reserve.

Your corporation's involvement in these projects is not in line with any code of business conduct and ethics. For AES in particular, its involvement runs completely counter to AES's "commitment to be environmentally responsible." The dams and infrastructure would devastate the region's unique native fish, negatively impact the entire ecosystem of the Changuinola/Teribe watershed and open this remote jungle for development. The Changuinola dams would also flood portions of indigenous Ngobe territory, displacing thousands of people. All participation in these projects by Empresas Publicas de Medellin, Hidroecologica del Teribe, and AES Corporation and its collaborators within the Changuinola Civil Works Joint Venture (Vattenfall AB of Sweden, E. Pihl & S?n A.S of Denmark, MT H?jgaard a/s of Denmark, and Alstom Brazil) should be terminated.

Please do not continue with or fund any further construction activities for these dams that would impact La Amistad Biosphere Reserve and rare species in the Changuinola/Teribe watershed. I urge you to protect the intact tropical rainforest and free-flowing streams of western Panama for the benefit of rare wildlife, indigenous people and international tourism.

lunes, 17 de noviembre de 2008

Panama is on a development spree, determined to get its share of the energy market by building hydroelectric projects across the country. Unfortunately, those projects don’t just dam the rivers; they damn indigenous peoples living alongside.

By Ellen L. Lutz

Isabel Becker is a tiny but tough Ngobe woman from the village of Charco la Pava in the Changuinola River valley in western Panama. She’s lived there all her life. At the age of 59, she has nine children and a multitude of grandchildren and great grandchildren. Isabel never had the opportunity to learn to read or write, and she speaks only her native Ngobe language. Until last year, she had only fleeting contact with Panama’s dominant society when she visited relatives in nearby Changuinola, the Panamanian headquarters for Chiquita Banana.

The Ngobe, who number about 170,000 people, are the largest indigenous group in Panama. The vast majority still live traditionally in Bocas del Toro, Chiriquí, and Veraguas provinces, where they sustain themselves through subsistence agriculture and fishing. They also grow cacao as a cash crop, which they sell to get basic necessities they do not produce, including sugar, clothing, and school supplies. Charco la Pava is home to about 367 people. The only ways in or out are on foot, by dugout canoe, or by helicopter.

Isabel’s wooden house was raised on pillars about six feet off the ground. It had curtained windows, a gently sloping tin roof, and generous eaves to shield the open-air living space below from the rain. Her large yard was cradled between the mountains and the Chanquinola River, and she had a fine view of the village on the other side. All in all, it was a handsome and comfortable home. But that was before the bulldozers came. An American corporation is developing a hydroelectric dam in Charco la Pava in partnership with the Panamanian government, and Isabel’s house stood in the way. So the government and the company pressured her into putting her thumbprint on a document she couldn’t read, and as soon as she did so they brought in a bulldozer to demolish her home.

The Chan 75 dam is being built by an affiliate of the Virginia-based AES Corporation, which received a concession from the government of Panama to build two hydroelectric dams along the Changuinola River in Bocas del Toro province. The river is in the buffer zone for the international La Amistad Biosphere Reserve, a UNESCO protected world heritage site that Panama shares with Costa Rica. It also is at the heart of Palo Seco Park, a national environmentally protected area.

Electricity from the dams will supply the ever-expanding appetite of Panama City, which today is a modern first-world city. About 3,500 indigenous people will be affected by the dams. AES Changuinola says that 1,005 people from four villages will need to move as a result of the inundation the dam will cause. For some the ensuing lake will swallow up their lands and homes. Others will be isolated by it. The dam will destroy their transportation routes and interfere with their food supply, preventing the migration of several fish species on which the people depend. But the government is eager to reap the economic rewards, and the company has already spent millions of dollars on the project. As illustrated by their treatment of Isabel Becker, they see indigenous people as a roadblock to be removed as quickly as possible.

Isabel’s story started in January 2007, when AES Changuinola flew her and some family members to the company’s offices in Panama City. She thought she was going for a paseo (a holiday). They took her on a city tour and then to AES’ offices on the 25th floor of an office tower. Isabel, having never been in a city before, had no idea how to use the elevator. Once inside their offices, Humberto Gonzalez, the company’s chairman, and Celia Bonilla, a Ngobe woman who works for AES, told her that they needed to get her agreement to sell them her land that same day. Isabel understood them to mean that she could not leave their offices unless she signed. With no money for the return flight, she was dependent on the company for transportation. After 10 hoursin the office she finally put her thumbprint on a prepared Spanish-language document she could not read so that she could go home.

The company knew, of course, that the circumstances of her signing were questionable, so, between January and October, they took a carrot-and-stick approach to convincing her to leave. Somebody would come to her house and threaten that the police were about to move her off the land. A day later, someone else would come with food for the entire family and promises about their bright future after she moved. The mayor of Changuinola tried to convince her to agree, as did the governor of Bocas del Toro province. They assured her that they were looking after her interests by making sure she got the best deal possible, but that she had to leave.

On July 20, representatives from the Changuinola mayor’s office and a bulldozer pulled up to the edge of her house. Isabel, who then was sick in bed, fainted. The mayor’s representatives took her to the hospital in Changuinola to be checked out, and then to the house that AES had built for her. Thinking the bulldozer was knocking her house down right then and there (they weren’t; it was just intended to scare her), she begged them to let her go home right away, but the mayor’s representative said she had to stay in town. She stayed up all night crying.

In August and September the company persuaded two of Isabel’s nearby daughters to sign and knocked down their houses. The intimidation then intensified to the point that in late October Isabel gave in. She “signed” a second document of sale of her land (again in unreadable Spanish) that increased the amount of money she was offered. Isabel still doesn’t understand what she sold, but it is clear that AES believes it now owns all of Isabel’s and her family members’ land.

The chain of events after she signed is still not clear. One of her daughters said that they made her leave the next day, but by other accounts she was given a week to abandon her home. Either way, she was totally unprepared when the police came one morning and made her leave with nothing but the clothes on her back. Then the bulldozers came in and crushed her house into splinters, while other workers burned her outbuilding to the ground. Her family came back later to retrieve as many of her animals as they could find, but she lost all of her possessions, one of her pigs, and some of her chickens.

The morality of the company’s action is clearly bankrupt, but its legal standing is also questionable. The lands Isabel “sold” did not belong exclusively to her. Rather they belonged collectively to all the members of her family who had rights to use them. According to Philip Young, a University of Oregon professor of anthropology who has worked with the Ngobe for many years, the ownership of the land depends on several things, most importantly, where family members live, their relationship to other family members, and the availability of land. Isabel’s granddaughter and her husband have recognized use rights to several parcels that AES is now holding, and they have filed a claim against AES to regain their rights to that land.

But whatever happens in a court of law, for now AES has the upper hand in Panama’s court of public opinion. The company has been publishing fullpage ads in La Prensa and other Panamanian newspapers showing all the benefits the new dam will bring to the country and to the Ngobe people. One ad shows a picture of a traditional Ngobe home followed by a more Western-looking house, as if to suggest how much better off Ngobe people will be. Another ad shows Isabel Becker in her new house in a poor suburb of Changuinola. The company maintains she is now happy; her family says she is traumatized and depressed and has no sense of what the future will bring.

As that public relations campaign indicates, the company and the government have virtually unlimited resources on their side; the Ngobe have no resources at all and no experience in defending their rights. For that matter, they are largely unaware of what their rights are in this situation. To help offset that deficit, I traveled to Panama to work with Lucia Lasso, an anthropologist working for the Panamanian NGO the Alliance for Conservation and Development (ACD), which opposes the dam. On November 7, Lucia and I hiked into Charco la Pava to meet the Ngobe families affected by the dam, to reinforce their understanding of their rights, and to offer legal help. That night, long after Lucia and I had settled into our hammocks, village leaders sat up preparing for a meeting the next day with government officials.

The following morning, Panama’s National Authority for the Environment (ANAM) flew in seven or eight of its highest officials by helicopter to meet with the community. ANAM ostensibly is responsible for the environmental impact of the dam and the relocation of indigenous peoples, but is acting more like a handmaiden to the hydroelectric company and the political interests that back it. The official delegation was joined by two representatives from the Defensoria del Pueblo (an ombudsman office that is supposed to guard against violations of human rights), AES-Changuinola chair Humberto Gonzalez, the governor of Bocos del Toro, a priest, and a high-ranking police officer.

The villagers’ organization was an amazing thing to see. Ernesto Lopez (a Ngobe village teacher) took the lead role: he began by rejecting the government’s agenda, which was printed in Spanish, and insisting that as the government was in the casa de los Ngobe, the Ngobe should set the agenda. Their agenda was to present ANAM with a community petition to stop the dam. Some negotiation ensued, and the community agreed to listen to what Gonzalez had to say as long as ANAM listened respectfully to them.

Using a portable generator (the village has no electricity), a digital projector, a laptop, and a screen, Gonzalez gave his standard, prepackaged Power-Point presentation to explain how hydroelectric dams are built and how they work. For the local people the presentation was an absurdity, both in form and in timing. Gomez spoke only in Spanish, which many Ngobe do not understand, and his presentation addressed none of their concerns. Moreover, AES had already plowed the roads and was digging the foundation for one side of the dam on Isabel’s land, even though Francisco Santos, the head of the family that lives on the opposite bank, has not caved into pressure to sell and leave their land.

When Gonzalez finished, one after another of the community members stood up to declare his or her opposition to construction going forward until the Ngobe had a chance to fully understand what was happening and decide upon a collective response. A woman named Elin Abrego said, “I have a finca [farm plot] on the other side of the river that I will not be able to get to. I won’t have water for my animals or the ability to move about freely. They are eroding the soil so my crops won’t be able to grow. Before the dam, ANAM never came. Once the dam project started being built, they came, but only to support the dam.”

She was followed by Alejandro Jimenez, who said, “The company offered our family money to conduct studies on our land.Now look: the company has dug away all the earth right up to the edge of my house. The company said it only wanted to negotiate with one member of the family, so my brother told them he was the spokesperson for our family. He signed a contract to allow them to conduct the studies, and he took their money. [The contract was for $1,005.] I have lived here for 50 years. I have asked the government for some form of pension, but they tell me I’m not entitled to a pension. But they have no problem pushing me off of my land.” Of about 24 speakers from 6 communities (the 4 that will be inundated, plus Nance de Riscó and Guayacán), only 3 people spoke in favor of the project. The applause for those who opposed the dam was thunderous. There was no applause for those in favor of the dam.

At the end of the meeting, Eduardo Reyes, subadministrator for ANAM, stood up and promoted the dam’s benefits to the people. He said the communities would be given similar land to what they have. These lands, he said, would be in parts of Palo Seco Park that are not under the highest levels of environmental protection, but he could not identify which lands those would be. He claimed that the dam would give them opportunities for training for jobs in ecotourism and would improve their opportunities for education and health care. When it was her turn to speak, the governor of Bocos del Toro repeated ANAM’s claims. She was particularly insulting when it came to Isabel Becker, who was not present. The governor claimed Isabel was “clearly happy with the outcome of her negotiations,” and that no one in the community had the right to speak for her. The government’s presentations were pure paternalism. It was as if they had not heard a word of what the Ngobe people had said. I got the sense from some of the ANAM group that they genuinely want to “help the poor Indians,” but others appeared to be in bed with AES, which is now behind schedule and in a hurry to get the construction back on track.

After the meeting, Lucia and I, along with several other ACD team members who had hiked in that morning, met with the leaders from all the Ngobe communities. They were jubilant. This was the most resistance the Ngobe had ever offered to anything, and they were clearly proud of what they had accomplished. Susana Serracín, an environmental lawyer working with ACD, got signed affidavits from a sufficient number of the community leaders to present a case before the country’s constitutional court—an action that Cultural Survival and ACD have now taken. We also got signed affidavits from community representatives to bring a petition to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights if we do not have success in Panama’s courts.

The Ngobe aren’t the only indigenous people affected by hydroelectric dam development in Panama. In neighboring Chiriquí province where many Ngobe, Buglé, and other indigenous communities live, 47 hydroelectric projects have been proposed, of which 22 have already been approved by ANAM. Indigenous communities in eastern Panama are facing similar pressure.

Closer to Changuinola, the 3,800 Naso people who have lived along the nearby Teribe River for more than a century are in the same predicament as the Ngobe, and we offered them similar support. A two-hour boat ride up the Teribe River brought Lucia, Susana, and me to Siey Yic, the Naso capital. Representatives of all 11 Naso villages had walked as much as four hours to attend the first-ever meeting with a representative of the president of Panama. Unfortunately, the representative’s father died on the eve of the planned meeting, and without any means of communicating throughout the region, there was no way to notify all the people that the meeting was cancelled. So, instead, our small delegation became the focus of the meeting.

The Naso communities are facing the destruction of their way of life by the Bonyik hydroelectric dam, which is being built by a Colombian company called Empresas Publicas de Medellin. The dam has caused a huge division within the community. Members who no longer maintain their traditional culture and who live in the towns surrounding Changuinola are in favor of the project because they believe it will provide them financial gain and other benefits.

But the Naso who still live in their traditional territory vehemently oppose the dam. Their lives revolve around the river, which they use for fishing and transportation. The biggest issue for them is the government’s failure to demarcate their territory and give them a comarca (similar to a reservation). Building the dam before their lands are even recognized is clearly wrong, and they are committed to resisting it until their lands are protected by the law.

The dam project has also divided the community with respect to its leadership. The Naso have the only king in the Americas. A former king, Tito Santana, negotiated with the government without informing his people, and allegedly accepted a lot of money for doing so. In response, the community deposed him and named a new king, Rey Valentin Santana. The people who live in the traditional territory now recognize him, while those who have moved to Changinola remain loyal to Tito Santana. (While we were attending the meeting in Siey Yic, the Naso community living in El Silencio on the outskirts of Changuinola held its own demonstration in favor of the Bonyik dam.)

At the start of our meeting, the people were summoned to order with the traditional blowing of the conch shell. King Valentine Santana offered opening remarks in Naso, saying that he particularly was happy about the opportunity for the Naso community to come together, and that he welcomed our delegation as “gente grande”—people with the capacity to help. He urged his people to remain united in this cause to stop the dam and to retain the Naso way of life. Aldolfo Villagra, president of the Naso People’s Council, then explained that the Naso have been fighting against the government over the dam since 2004. They have already achieved a lot by opening up space for negotiation.

Naso community members then testified about their concerns. One pointed out that in 1968 Kuna and Embera peoples gave up land for the Bayano dam in Panama province in exchange for promises of comparable lands and other forms of compensation. What they actually received was far less than what was promised.

Others were offended that the president of the republic, Martin Torrijos, came to Bonyik to overturn the dam project’s first stone. Wilma Aguilar said that road workers came onto her property on Rancho Quemado to clear land for the road. When she asked them who had given them permission to enter her land, they told her the land was untitled and she had no control over it. Alicia Quintero said that in June, seven people came onto her land one afternoon and told her they were going to build the road there. She told them it was her land, and she would not allow it. Three days later, they came back and cut down all her trees and crops. She wanted to know who was going to pay for the damage.

Meanwhile, recognizing the rapacious nature of the opposition, the Naso have started blockading the movement of construction vehicles into the dam site. They drafted a petition signed by 600 Naso calling for the creation of a Naso comarca, a halt to dam construction, an end to the expansion of a private cattle ranch that has been moving into Naso territory, and the government’s recognition of Valentine Santana as the leader of the Naso people. They sent the petition to the government on October 28. The meeting we witnessed was supposed to be the government’s response; in the absence of the government’s representative, it was unclear what would happen next. But just as we were leaving Changuinola the police rounded up six Naso men who had been observed at the blockades and threw them in jail, where they were held over a long holiday weekend.

The Naso are comfortable with conflict and are accustomed to standing up to the government. For the Ngobe, on the other hand, asserting their rights does not come easily. They are used to dealing with the government through avoidance. Yet both communities are gaining greater awareness of the consequences of inaction and of their rights to their lands, which were recently upheld in the new United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as well as in the case law of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (whose decisions are binding on Panama).With that knowledge, they are becoming more determined to gain control over their futures. Panama’s indigenous communities are tired of promises and deception, and they are increasingly finding their voice.

For Cultural Survival, the next steps are to continue monitoring the situation, while providing all the support we can to our ACD colleagues as they pursue legal remedies in Panama’s courts. And, if necessary, we will ensure that the cases of the Ngobe and Naso peoples are heard by the human rights bodies of the Organization of American States.

Earlier this month, the Ngobe of western Panama wrote an urgent appeal that asks the international community for immediate assistance. For some time now they’ve been struggling to stop the US-based company AES from building the Changuinola dam on their traditional lands.

In recent months, the situation has become hopeless for the Ngobe. According to the appeal, the National Police have taken over their community and they are “being subjected to cruel violations of our fundamental human rights.” On top of that, the government has un-communicated them from the world; and they are quite literally being forced to sign away their lands, rights, and livelihoods — “under threat of arms and death.”

The Ngobe say, “We are desperate and abandoned. The government reiterates that we have no rights, and that they have the power to do as they wish… We ask, please do all in your power to stop this barbarism. Our lives and land depend on being able to stop these violations.”

Cultural Survival has set up two things you can do:

1. Send a letter to persuade Panama’s environmental agency, ANAM, which commissioned AES-Changuinola to build the dam, to halt construction and set up a process that guarantees that the Ngobe peoples’ human rights, now and in the future, are respected.

Letter of the Ngobe People affected by Dam Chan 75 of the Company AES Changuinola

We send this letter as an urgent plea for international support and help. The Ngäbe located in the community of Charco La Pava, District of Changuinola, Province of Bocas del Toro, Republic of Panama, are being subjected to cruel violations of our fundamental human rights. The community has been taken over by the national police, whom have proceeded to repeatedly use deadly force against us, torturing community leaders, abusing us through physical and verbal agressions, destroying our property, land and homes, and controlling through violence all aspects of our daily life.

The Company AES Changuinola, which wishes to develop a Hydro-electric plant in the Changuinola River, the contractor company of swedish origins CCW (Changuinola Civil Works), in complicity with the governor of the Province of Bocas del Toro, Esther Mena Chiu, of the Mayor Virginia Abrego, regional ANAM representative Valentin Pineda, have all participated directly in the violation of our human rights, dignity and humanity. AES Changuinola personnel involved are area responsible Engineer Thais Mejia, as well as Rodolfo Ayarza, Beanvides Morales y Lidami Morales. The National Police has worked through the National Police Unit, Zone 9 of Changuinola, under the orders of Jose Maneul Rios.

Among the examples of human rights violations: the National Police through a Riot Control Unit beat, threatened and dragged children, pregnant women and elderly people of the community, publicly stripped nude Ana Castillo, and then dragged and beat her through the streets, threatened Francisco Santos with death, forced community members with armed guards to sign documents whose content they did not know, set fire to the house of Isabel Becker and caused deadly injuries to the boy Ivan Miranda due to a police baton blow to the face.

The Company AES Changuinola together with the National Government, and under the armed vigilence of police officers, imposed two alternatives: accept 2 thousand dollars as payment for each hectare of land (which equals to 20 cents per square meter), or be evicted by force on the first week of April of 2008. We are being forced to negotiate under threat of arms and death.

We are desperate and abandoned. The government reiterates that we have no rights, and that they have the power to do as they wish.

They have us uncommunicated and dont let anyone visit the community. They have tortured, evicted and threatened to death our leaders, have destroyed our lands, forests and animals which are the source of food for our people. We live in constant fear because there is no law that protects us in these places.

We ask, please do all in your power to stop this barbarism. Our lives and land depend on being able to stop these violations.

Ernesto Lopez

Ngöbes Communities affected by the construction of the Hydro-electric plants. we extracted this information from the declarations made by Ana Castillo done on the 9th of March of 2008.

1 Mrs Castillo and her sons, 12 year old Anselmo Santos, 10 year old Didier Santos and 6 year old Irene Santos, went where most of the communisty was protecting itself from the explotions, when they were violently supressed, as Mrs Castillo narrates: “my kids and I went to where the others were at the entrance to the community asking the AES employees to please not to harm their crops, when by orders of Engineers Rodolfo Ayarza and Lidami Morales, the police hit and kicked me, they grabbed me by my hairs, they hit my children with their baton, I only wanted them not to harm my crops”.

2 “When I was on the floor the police stepped on my chest with his boot while he laughed”.

4 Mrs. Ana Castillo was verbally abused, stripped nude, beaten and exposed to the public by the National Police Units, Zone 9 of the Changuinola Police headquarters, under the order of police chief Jose Manuel Rios. Once detained in the Police quarters, Mrs. Castillo was again verbally abused, threatened and admonished by the police units, and as she narrates: “in the police quarters I wanted water, and cried together with my children. The police told me: you are stupid and rude..what rights are you going to demand? You have no rights, next time we will take everything by force. You want water? Then he laughed and hit me and didnt give me water, when I spoke I was beaten, and told me I had to sign”.

5 The minors, 12 year old Anselmo Santos, 10 year old Didier Santos and 6 year old Irene Santos, whom accompanied their mother, were detained and beaten next to their mother by the National Police. “the police in the quarter would ask my child if he wanted to eat and would then laugh, indians like you have no rights”.

6 “I dont want to see the police, I live here, all our forefathers lived here, if they take me out of here I dont know where I´ll live, I only have this land, when I bathe in the river the police look at me, I want them to leave”.